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Links 12/10/2021: Jörg Schilling Passes Away, Tor Browser 11.0a8



  • GNU/Linux

    • RIP Jörg Schilling

      He is also remembered for his commitment to open source, portability, and his work on POSIX. He was working on adapting his software to Z/OS and introducing message catalogues just weeks before his death.

      Jörg worked for the Bethold typesetting company, one of the first European customers of SUN microsystems. It is there that his love for UNIX and SUN OS in particular was kindled. [1]

      His interest in SUN OS culminated in Schillix, one of the first open source Solaris distributions.

      We will of course also remember him for his flames.

    • FreedomBox: A personal server for Privacy and Security

      Over the next couple of weeks this blog will be a "living attempt" to acquaint people with the functionality and setup of a personal FreedomBox Internet server that is suitable for supporting one person or a community of people.

      In addition to helping people in setting up the basic FreedomBox software, as time allows I will be expanding this blog entry to install some of the useful functionality inside of FreedomBox and additional functionality that can not really be distributed preconfigured with the distribution.

      FreedomBox can be set up on a variety of hardware and operating system scenarios but a lot of people buy a single board computer such as the official FreedomBox Pioneer from Olimex, a company in Bulgaria that specializes in Open Hardware and is an official partner of FreedomBox, a 501(c)3 non-profit.

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Why pre-installation is so important

        Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips recently did a long-form chat about the Steam Deck and Linux in general. A major complaint was that Linux is too hard to install, and this gets to the heart of why I believe pre-installing our software on devices like the Steam Deck is so important.

        The truth is that Linus is right; a Linux-based OS is too hard to install. Only huge nerds can manage it or even have the courage to try in the first place, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed in the process. But let’s face it: this would be the case for Windows or macOS as well. Imagine if every computer was bought as an empty shell and the user needed to choose an operating system, research compatibility, flash a USB drive with the selected OS or buy a DVD or something, and then install it. You think grandma is gonna do that? I don’t think so. How about a busy professional? Forget it.

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Things To Consider When Filing Bug Reports - Invidious

        In today's boomer vlog, I talk a bit about filing bug reports or opening support requests. What is the proper venue for opening support requests? What information should you include in your post? And why is it important to do it right!

      • DD Is Useless: Just Use CAT Instead - Invidious

        DD is an incredibly powerful program and the way a lot of people copy ISOs onto their thumbdrives but not only is it not the only way there is also a better way and that is by using cat.

      • Destination Linux 247: Is Firefox Slowly Dying? Can Mozilla Save It?

        This week’s episode of Destination Linux, we’re going to discuss the topic of Mozilla Firefox and whether we can stop it’s continued decline. Then we’re going to discuss the literal game changer, and the device that has everyone looking at Linux in a big way. Yes, its Steamy news about the Steam Deck, and there are some awesome videos and sneak peeks we are excited to talk about! Plus we’ve also got our famous tips, tricks and software picks. All of this and so much more this week on Destination Linux. So whether you’re brand new to Linux and open source or a guru of sudo. This is the podcast for you.

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux Can Now Run on Apple’s M1 Chipset

        Linux users looking to take advantage of Apple Silicon are about to get their wish with the M1 chipset.

        It seemed only yesterday that a small group of developers began work on porting Linux to the new Apple M1 chipset. The journey was a struggle from day one, given how much proprietary hardware Apple uses. But the work has paid off and Asahi Linux, a community-based project centered around porting a distribution to the Apple M1 chipset, has finally succeeded in getting a usable Linux desktop on the hardware.

        The engineers have merged various drivers and bindings for the 5.16 Linux kernel and even managed to work out the pinctrl driver, I2C driver, device power management, NVMe+SART, and DCP. Thanks to those new drivers, M1 Macs are now a viable option for the Linux operating system.

    • Applications

      • Seahorse: Manage Your Passwords & Encryption Keys in Linux

        We often tend to ignore many default/pre-installed applications, especially when numerous tools and utilities are baked in.

        One such helpful tool that you can use on various Linux distributions is GNOME’s Seahorse.

        What do you think about using Seahorse to replace other password managers? Were you already using it to manage encryption keys? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

      • Matrix Chat Adoption by Community in 2021

        Free Software Community is a worldwide society consisted of so many software projects, companies and other organizations. In this community you find Ubuntu, GNU and Linux, LibreOffice, Red Hat and Purism among others. This is our community. Today, we have Matrix Chat, a new public telecommunication facility accessible for everyone, a new technology born from our Community itself. With Matrix Chat, a community can provide an independent, free group chat and video calls for public to join and engage in discussion, publication, and conference. Matrix Chat has been successfully used even for international online conference with 30 thousands attendees. To foster adoption of Matrix Chat, this article lists out several important communities which adopted it so everyone can learn from them and consider to follow.

      • FOSS Torrents Is Your Gate For Linux Distributions Torrents

        Torrents are very common between users downloading a Linux distribution. Typically, a Linux distribution’s ISO size varies between 1GB and 4.9GB, with 2.5GB being the average. Hence, normal HTTP connection could take a long time to finish downloading it.

        Torrents on the other hand are much faster, because users are downloading from their peers, who are other users also downloading and/or seeding the same file. Those peers might be closer to them geographically than the original uploader/seeder of the file, which overall results in better download speeds.

        Moreover, torrents can be easily resumed or fixed in the case of a connection error or an MD5 mismatch (Meaning that the file is corrupted). By just selecting the same download path, most torrent programs can continue downloading the corrupted or missing parts automatically.

        Today we’ll introduce you to FOSS Torrents, an independent torrent service which provides torrents for various Linux distributions and other open source software, for free.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Dockerize Node.js apps with Buildpacks

        Docker has long been the go-to tool to create easily distributable and deployable artifacts.

        A Docker image can host code written in almost any language; every major operating system supports the ability to execute Docker images and all the cloud providers have at least one platform that allows deployed Docker images.

        However, creating a Docker image from your custom application code requires a little expertise, especially if you regularly rebuild images as you make changes to your code.

        It is very easy to unnecessarily download thousands of packages each time an image is built, wasting time, consuming bandwidth, and costing money.

      • Rescuing a Frozen Linux System With Some Magic - Boiling Steam

        We’ve all had to face it: the frozen, hanging, crashed system. No fun for sure, especially if you were in the middle of a game before saving (or, I don’t know, doing work? no judgment). If you’ve been around Linux for a while you’ve probably picked up some favorite ways of dealing with a less than responsive system, but if you are new you may reach for Ctrl-Alt-Delete or that reset button right away.

        To help out new Linux users, and hopefully show some tricks for the more experienced hands, here is a quick guide and tips on trying to save an unresponsive program or system. My experience is mostly with lightweight window managers rather than desktop environments like Gnome, and on X rather than Wayland, but I’ll try to cover this as well. I’ll present these roughly in order of easy and more typical, to less common or more drastic.

      • You use Windows 7 and LibreOffice 7.1 doesn't start [Ed: Microsoft Windows is a legacy OS]
      • MariaDB-as-a-Service in RoseHosting Cloud Platform
      • Linux 101: What's the difference between a desktop environment and a window manager? - TechRepublic

        After using Linux for a while, you'll come across an article or mention of a window manager. What does that mean? Is it a desktop environment? No. Is it a part of a desktop environment? Sometimes. I want to try and clear this up a bit, so you don't wind up confusing one with the other.

        The first thing to know is that they can both serve as your desktop interface. The biggest difference, however, is that one makes your Linux life considerably easier. Which one? The desktop environment. The thing about a desktop environment is that it focuses on a wholly integrated experience. That means every application will enjoy features like drag and drop between each other.

        For example, in GNOME (a desktop environment), you can drag an .odt file from the file manager into LibreOffice to open the file in question.

        A window manager (such as Fluxbox) doesn't always have that feature (although with a bit of tweaking you can make it work).

      • Data centre networking: SDN fundamentals | Ubuntu

        In the precedent blog, we provided an introduction to Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and the main reasons which compelled the industry to adopt it. We’ve seen how impactful it can be to leverage scalable automation and the power of software to define and run key networking components. Being sufficiently granular to address functions such as switching, routing, security and QoS, provides strong benefits to the organisations’ IT teams. Going further, making those networking functions model-driven and tied to the end-user’s application intent will highly improve the business applications’ outcomes. In this blog, we will cover the principal components of SDN, its architecture and different types.

      • How to Install and Configure Smartctl on Ubuntu

        Every Major OS hard drive has an option from which that OS can monitor the health and current status of its system using the Smartmontools which is a package having two utility programs i-e smartctl and smartd. Smartctl is used to control self-monitoring as well as analysis and reporting (short form is SMART) of ATA-3 as well as other hard drives or SSDs like SCSI-3 and ATA.

        Smartctl is designed to perform smart operations from the command line such as initiating device self-tests and printing smart self-test etc. Using smartctl a user can read the smart information from the hard disk and can perform tests on the SSD or hard drive to detect any problems with the hard drive or SSD.

        In this post, we’ll teach you how to install and configure smartctl on Ubuntu 20.04, as well as how to uninstall smartctl from Ubuntu, so, without further ado, let’s get started with installing smartctl.

      • How to install and use Steam on Debian 11

        Most popular high-end games are not accessible for Linux-based systems, which is why gaming is not always an enjoyable experience for these systems. In such a situation, Steam provides an unmatched way to play AAA PC titles on Linux.

        Steam is an online platform for games such as iTunes for music and Amazon Kindle for ebooks. Users can buy and install and play multiplayer games from this platform and communicate with other gamers through social networking. In Steam, Digital Rights Management (DRM) is used to protect the games.

        Steam has been steadily improving since it was introduced to the Linux-based system such as Debian 11. Steam Play and Proton and Steam’s version of Wine enable you to enjoy the experience of your Windows games using your Linux client. Even better, you do not have to install any external repositories to avail these options.

        You will learn about how to install and use Steam on Debian 11 in today’s post. So let’s start!

      • How to Make a Debian 11 Bootable USB

        Most devices come with a pre-installed OS; however, you can change the OS as per your likeness or requirements. Nowadays, the computing machines even do not have built-in DVD/CD drives; therefore, users have no choice other than switching to the new methods. Usually, pen drives are being used to get new operating systems; you can make USB bootable by using the iso image of operating systems. To make it bootable, there are several tools available that help to extract important files from iso image and then add those files to the USB drive to make it functional. In this post, we have briefly described the step-by-step procedure to make a Debian 11 bootable USB.

      • How to Install and Use Netstat on CentOS

        System administrators utilize network statistics or netstat as a command-line tool to analyze network data. Routing tables, multicast memberships, interface statistics, network connections, masquerade connections, and other network-related information is displayed using the netstat command. It also assists you in finding out network problems.

        In this post, you will learn about how to install and use netstat on CentOS. So, let’s start!

      • How to Use Vagrant with VMware Workstation Pro 16 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

        Vagrant is for virtual machines what Docker is for containers. Vagrant is a wrapper for different hypervisor programs like VMware Workstation Pro, VMware Player, VirtualBox, Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, etc. Vagrant uses a simple text-based configuration file called Vagrantfile to quickly set up a development environment with one of the supported virtual machine providers/hypervisors.

        Vagrant can quickly configure virtual machines based on your project requirement and get them up and running. Vagrant command-line interface provides easy management for the virtual machines as well. You can easily SSH into any Vagrant-managed virtual machines, configure them, destroy them and recreate them on the fly. Vagrant simplifies managing virtual machines for development projects and saves a lot of time.

        Vagrant also makes sharing your work with other people really easy. All you have to do is share the Vagrantfile of your project, and the person on the other side can recreate everything with Vagrant.

        In this article, I will show you how to install the latest version of Vagrant on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and configure Vagrant to use VMware Workstation Pro 16 as a virtual machine provider. So, let’s get started.

      • Install Kanban (kanboard) on Centos 8 - Unixcop

        Kanboard is an Open source project management software which helps you to manage your project and visualize your work details. It offers easy to use web interface that allows you to manage your project with ease. You can also integrate kanboard with external programs using plugins.

        In this article we will see how to install kanboard / Kanban on CentOS 8.

      • How to install SSF2 Crimson's Trash Modpack on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install SSF2 Crimson's Trash Modpack on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • How to Login Remote Ubuntu 20.04 Server with Passwordless SSH Key | UbuntuHandbook

        For those having Ubuntu or other Linux server (e.g., Debian, CentOS and Fedora) remotely, here’s how to login without password using SSH key authentication.

        Compare to user password login, SSH key authentication is more secure because only the person who has the key allows to connect, and the keys are well encrypted by different algorithms. It also make SSH connection simple by login without password.

      • How to Install Graylog Server on Ubuntu 21 - Unixcop

        Graylog is an open source tool for Log Management. It consists of Elastic Search, MongoDB and Graylog. Graylog can be used to analyze logs and notify if there is any discrepancy in the logs. We can also use it to analyze conventional as well as custom logs.

        In this Article we will install Graylog. You must have an account with sudo privileges or root account.

      • How to Install Sentrifugo HRM on CentOS 8 - Unixcop

        Sentrifugo is a FREE and powerful Human Resource Management System that can be easily configured to meet your organizational needs. Also It is a feature-rich and easily configurable application. It is written in PHP and uses MySQL/MariaDB to store its database. You can use Sentrifugo to track the employee’s performance, vacation dates, roles and privileges.

      • How To Install Hyper Terminal on AlmaLinux 8 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Hyper Terminal on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Hyper terminal is built with web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Electron.js, etc. It is a highly customizable and configurable Terminal, so you can easily change your Terminal appearance with different themes and also extend its functionality with plugins.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Hyper Terminal on AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for CentOS and Rocky Linux.

      • How to Check if Hardware RAID is Configured on Linux Server

        Hardware RAID is configured on the physical servers, which use a dedicated RAID controller to manage the raid configuration.

        The RAID controller manages and performs all RAID-related tasks independently of the OS. What I am saying is that it does not take any resources from the operating system to perform raid related tasks.

        RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It combines multiple physical hard disk drives into one or more logical drive to improve performance and reliability.

        In this guide, we’ll show you how to check hardware RAID configured on HP ProLiant servers from Linux.

    • Games

      • Lutris 0.5.9 Released With Support For The Epic Games Store, New Options

        Lutris 0.5.9 is now available for this open-source Linux game manager program that has now added initial support for the Epic Games Store among other new options and enhancements in this new version.

        Lutris 0.5.9 provides initial Epic Games Store support. Given that Epic still isn't offering this platform natively on Linux, the Epic Games Store support on Linux is limited to use under Wine. More details on that integration via Lutris.net.

      • Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 7: The Arena Eternal | GamingOnLinux

        When I was growing up, one of my first exposures to Linux was my father’s stack of old Linux Journal magazines. Printed in several of these was one of many advertisements by the Linux server company Penguin Computing, this one depicting Linux mascot Tux brandishing a rocket launcher in the iconic Q3DM7 map included in the demo version of Quake III Arena. This image became so emblematic of Linux as a gaming platform that it still gets widely circulated to this day.

        When I switched to using Linux full time in the spring of 2007 one of my first accomplishments was getting that same demo to install. I remember being frustrated at not having it work on first launch, until I discovered I had to copy my system's libGL.so.1 file to the install directory, one last caveat brought on by the need to support both 3dfx as well as more generic OpenGL accelerator hardware. From that moment on, my Linux box became a gaming machine.

        It was not until later that I would discover the full effect Quake III Arena had on the Linux ecosystem by downloading and playing the numerous derivative games created from the 2005 source code release available in almost all Linux software repositories. Even with all of those other options it was the original game I always found myself coming back to, with my main listed frag count now exceeding 21,000 frags as of the time of this writing.

      • Book of Travels is a thoroughly strange take on an online RPG now in Early Access | GamingOnLinux

        Might and Delight has just released Book of Travels, an online RPG played they're calling a "TMORPG" meaning Tiny Multiplayer Online RPG and it's quite something. Note: personal purchase.

        The idea is that instead of joining a server with thousands of people, you're given a world where you might come across a few others instead but not too many. Right now the total per server is only seven people, so you're lucky if you even see anyone and in a way it makes it a bit more exciting. Compared with other online RPGs, it's a much more solitary experience and one you can quite easily relax in.

      • How to play The Room on Linux

        The Room is a puzzle game developed by Fireproof Games. In the game, the player is challenged to figure out how to open each locked room through a series of puzzles. Here’s how to play The Room on your Linux PC.

      • Gaming on Fedora

        Gaming is a beautiful hobby that many people are engaging with. Across all demographics people are busy creating their own digital farms, working together in combat, or simply socializing while maintaining a space-ship, free of impostors. All of this can be done on Fedora Linux. And while it doesn’t have a name for being flashy, looks can be deceiving. Keep reading to find out how you can play the latest video games on Fedora Linux.

        With its mission statement emphasizing features and innovation, Fedora is often on the forefront of embracing new technologies, the latest Linux kernels and the latest drivers. All without sacrificing stability or reliability. Fedora won’t cripple itself in an attempt to be first, but it will certainly try to lead by example.

    • Distributions

      • Best Linux Distro for Programming

        If you’re a programmer and you’re looking for a Linux distro, this will help you find the perfect fit.

        Without further ado, we’ll go straight to the distro recommendations. If you want to learn more, scroll down to the bottom of the article.

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Say hello to Ubuntu Frame [Ed: ZDNet very, very late]

          We use Canonical's Ubuntu Linux on desktops, servers, and clouds all the time. But Ubuntu also finds its way into narrower purposes. For example, Ubuntu Core Linux is often used in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Now, with Ubuntu Frame, Ubuntu has an even more specialized role: digital signs and user kiosks.

        • Ubuntu 21.10: What’s New? [Video]
          Six months of dedicated development went into creating Ubuntu 21.10, which is backed by 9 months of security and core app updates. This release also acts as a gateway to next year’s long-term support (LTS) release.

          And by jove is there plenty to see!

          While the arrival of GNOME 40 and its rejigged desktop is a rather big deal on its own, I imagine the imposition of a Firefox Snap app as default will inspire the most discussion. Ubuntu 21.10 isn’t just lighter to look at (spoiler) but it feels lighter in use to — I’m not running the distro on top-tier hardware.

        • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 704

          Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 704 for the week of October 3 – 9, 2021. The full version of this issue is available here.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • OSCAL, Open Labs, Mozilla & grooming women for Outreachy

            Monday, 11 October is the UN's International Day for the Girl Child. The definition of Girl Child varies from country to country. In the law of Albania, the age of consent can be as low as 14 if you can convince (bribe) a judge that a 14 year old girl has achieved sexual maturity. Legal text.

            What does it look like when children aged 16 and 17 make software for big corporations to use?

            Today we find out

            Here is a team photo from Ura Design, one of the Albanian companies using the hackerspace as a front for people trafficking. In the team we see a former Outreachy, Renata Gegaj beside a future Outreachy, Anja Xhakani.

          • New Release: Tor Browser 11.0a8 (Android Only)

            Tor Browser 11.0a8 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.

            Note: This is an alpha release, an experimental version for users who want to help us test new features. For everyone else, we recommend downloading the latest stable Windows/macOS/Linux or Android release instead.

      • SaaS/Back End/Databases

        • PostgreSQL Weekly News - October 10, 2021

          pgCluu 3.2, a Perl program to audit PostgreSQL performance, released.

          PGroonga 2.3.2 a full text search platform for all languages, released.

        • Percona Distribution for PostgreSQL Operator 1.0.0

          The PostgreSQL Operator for Kubernetes automates the lifecycle, simplifies deploying and managing open source PostgreSQL clusters. The Operator follows best practices for configuration and setup of the Percona Distribution for PostgreSQL. The Operator provides a consistent way to package, deploy, manage, and perform a backup and a restore for a Kubernetes application. Operators deliver automation advantages in cloud-native applications.

        • pgAdmin 4 v6.0 Released

          The pgAdmin Development Team are pleased to announce pgAdmin 4 version 6.0. This release of pgAdmin 4 includes 18 bug fixes and new features. For more details please see the release notes.

          pgAdmin is the leading Open Source graphical management tool for PostgreSQL. For more information, please see the website.

      • FSF

        • Licensing/Legal

          • JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Fifth Chamber) 6 October 2021 [...] Case C-13/20

            On those grounds, the Court (Fifth Chamber) hereby rules:

            1. Article 5(1) of Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs must be interpreted as meaning that the lawful purchaser of a computer program is entitled to decompile all or part of that program in order to correct errors affecting its operation, including where the correction consists in disabling a function that is affecting the proper operation of the application of which that program forms a part.

            2. Article 5(1) of Directive 91/250 must be interpreted as meaning that the lawful purchaser of a computer program who wishes to decompile that program in order to correct errors affecting the operation thereof is not required to satisfy the requirements laid down in Article 6 of that directive. However, that purchaser is entitled to carry out such a decompilation only to the extent necessary to effect that correction and in compliance, where appropriate, with the conditions laid down in the contract with the holder of the copyright in that program.

      • Programming/Development

        • Exit Function in C

          Exit() is a core function in the C/C++ programming language that is used to instantly end the calling process (function). It is possible to call from any function. It informs the operating system of the state of program termination by passing an int value. It is usually used when software crashes unexpectedly. It is also recognized as the program’s current state. The exit function can be used to end a program at any moment, regardless of how many function calls have been performed. It calls a variety of other functions before terminating the application, such as shutting open files, to clean up.

          The exit function is specified in the < stdlib.h > header and is included in the C standard libraries. The <stdlib.h> file defines several types, macros, and basic utility functions for performing numerical conversions, random number generation, sorting, memory management, and interacting with the environment. To interrelate with the environment, utilize the exit function.

        • JavaScript (JS)

          • What are Callback Functions in JavaScript?

            If you’re a programmer, you’ve probably heard of functions, which are a set of statements that perform an action and return an output but what are callback functions?

            The callback function is an extremely important concept of javascript and is widely used in promises, event listeners, arrays, and much more.

            We’ll go over what callback functions are and how to use them in JavaScript in this tutorial as well as We will also talk about the synchronous and asynchronous callback functions. To have clear and profound concepts of Callback functions we will implement some examples as well.

          • What Does the “use strict” Directive Do in JavaScript

            JavaScript evolved for a long time having no compatibility issues and modified by adding new features but not changing the old features. It had its advantages and disadvantages and the advantage was that it didn’t allow the breaking of the existing code, however, the disadvantage was that any error made by the developers or creators was stuck within JavaScript forever.

            It carried on until ECMAScript 5 (also referred to as ES5) was introduced in 2009 whose perk was that it added new features while modifying current ones. However, by default in JavaScript, these modifications are off. One needs to enable it with a special message or command which is the “use strict”.

          • Top 10 Popular Websites Built using JavaScript – Examples

            Popularity of JavaScript is increasing day by day with it’s usage for building websites, mobile applications, web based games and server side applications. It’s a client side scripting language but with the introduction of NodeJs, it’s now possible to handle server side as well.

            JavaScript is evolving everyday, making it’s way more into the tech world by introducing various frameworks, which makes the life of developers easy. Many websites which are popularly known are built around JavaScript which shows how important and useful the language is. In this write-up, you will have the top 10 popular websites built using JavaScript.

          • What are JavaScript Object Accessors

            JavaScript object accessors are used to access and update the objects and two keywords used for this function are getter and the other is the setter. JavaScript introduced getters and setters in ES5 in 2009.

            We’ll look at what getters and setters are and how to utilize them in JavaScript in this tutorial as well as go over why you should use get or set methods of JavaScript. Apart from this, we will discuss the object.defineProperty() as well. In the end, we will shine some light on which browser supports the set and get methods. So let’s get started.

          • How to Reverse an Array in JavaScript

            Reversing an array is a very popular coding problem which is often asked as an interview question when applying for an entry level JavaScript Developer position. Sometimes you will be asked to modify the original array so that the first element becomes the last and the second element becomes the second last element of the array and so on. Sometimes you might be asked to reverse an array without changing the original array.

            In this post we will look at different methods which are used to reverse an array in JavaScript; these methods will include the methods which reverse the original array as well as methods which can be used to make a new reversed array.

          • How to Speed up the Execution of JavaScript Code

            When developing an app or a website, one of the most crucial elements to consider is the app’s or website’s performance. As a user, I wouldn’t want any app to take a long time to load or whenever I click something and I have to wait for some action. Often if the webpage takes 5-6 seconds to load most users including me would leave the webpage.

            For web developers, JavaScript is a fantastic tool. Every web developer learned JavaScript at some point in their life. However, poor JavaScript code results in slower websites.

            With this in mind, a developer always looks at ways of improving his webpage. You are in luck because today we are going to talk about how to speed up the execution of JavaScript code.

          • How to Write a JavaScript Program to Get File Extension from File Name?

            The file extension is a three or four-letter abbreviation or an acronym at the end of a file that tells you what kind of file it is under different operating systems. For example, the file name is code.js hence the extension here is js. The goal of this article is to show you how to write a JavaScript program to get file extensions from a file name. We will discuss two of the easiest and most used methods to find the file extension.

          • How to Reverse a String in JavaScript

            Reversing an array is a very popular coding problem that is often asked as an interview question to beginner JavaScript devs. Sometimes the interviewers add certain restrictions, forcing you to come up with ingenious solutions.

            In JavaScript, a string can be reversed by many different methods. In this post we will discuss the most creative and interesting methods for reversing a string.

          • How to Link JavaScript to HTML

            JavaScript is a very popular scripting language which is used both on the client-side as well as on the server-side. JavaScript is necessary for our web pages as it makes our web page interactive.

        • Python

          • Bytes to String in Python

            In Python, whenever we store anything, it will store it as a byte. The bytes are not human-readable, and strings are human-readable forms. Whenever we store any string, it will not directly store it as a string; it will be encoded into the bytes using different methods like ASCII and UTF-8.

  • Leftovers

    • Hydrarchy, Maritime Resistance, and the Production of Race: An interview with Marcus Rediker

      This concept of hydrarchy emerged from the book Peter Linebaugh and I wrote called The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Beacon Press 2000). Edward Braithwate wrote in 1631 that sailors lived in a “hydrarchy,” the social order of life at sea. Hydrarchy literally meant government on the water. We re-deployed an archaic term and made it central to our book. It has remained important to all of the work I have done ever since. Like many other concepts, hydrarchy needs to be understood from two perspectives: from above and from belove.

      If we look at it from above, hydrarchy refers to the imperial organization and control of maritime space during the construction of a global system of capitalism, beginning in the late 16th century and continuing on to the present. The hydrarchy of naval power polices and manages the sea, for the accumulation of capital.

    • Forget the Huddled Masses, Bring Us Billionaires
    • Fleeting Memories of Youth and the Increasing Impermanence of Culture

      The most lasting mementos are physical artefacts: a small clay figurine, a handful of photos. A physical book of IRC quotes we had professionally printed and bound many years ago is, ironically, likely to outlive whatever bit-rotting homepage we once built to make permanent the same quotes online.

      I could scan everything and upload the pictures to some cloud server somewhere, pretending that it's still going to be there in forty years, but I won't. Instead, I take the photos out sometimes and perform my own little ritual of remembrance: thumbing through them, smiling and thinking of what was no doubt simpler times, even though teenage turmoil certainly didn't make it feel that way back then.

    • Science

    • Health/Nutrition

      • Opinion | The Preventable Horrors of the Pandemic and the Short Case for Open Research

        The Covid 19 pandemic is once again at an inflection point– with cases now falling sharply in most of the world. The current pandemic may be coming under control, but after millions of preventable deaths,€  this is very far from a success story and it is as good€  a time as any to take a hard look at our failings, especially with regard to our management of knowledge€ € € 

      • Pandemic Solidarity Transformed Our Society. Now We Need It Again.

        Recently, I took a moment to reflect on how I was feeling at this point in the pandemic and, unsurprisingly, like everyone I know, it’s not great. Despite the fact that we are safer this year (we have vaccines after all!) and we are now able to see more friends and family, I feel worse than I did at the beginning of the pandemic. Everyone I know is on edge or otherwise irritated, and there’s a sense that we’re all collectively meaner. Certainly, this is the case when you look at what service staff all over the country are reporting dealing with—rude and aggressive customers resisting mask and vaccine requirements. Heath care workers are dealing with an incredible amount of violence and threats; some hospitals have distributed panic buttons in case of assault. The country is bitterly divided over masks and vaccines—particularly for children, leading to fights at school boards across the country, which have prompted boards to ask for federal protection. Thinking back to the beginning of the pandemic, when I spent days alone in my apartment in Providence, the key thing that stands out is the collective sense of solidarity that filled the air. Despite some protests against stay-at-home orders, polling from last April shows that most Americans were staying home to flatten the curve and protect our health care system. And in the name of doing so, governments at all levels began to institute a number of policies in that briefly transformed American society.

      • On “natural immunity” to COVID-19 (and every other vaccine-preventable disease)

        Ever since COVID-19 hit, I’ve been repeating the mantra, “Everything old is new again”. The reason is simple. Key to understanding a lot of the misinformation about COVID-19, its spread, and COVID-19 vaccines is an understanding that none of this misinformation is new. Rather, it’s the same misinformation that we at€ SBM€ have long been dealing with, just applied to the pandemic. Examples abound, including the minimization of the severity of COVID-19 that so much resembles how antivaxxers minimized the severity of the measles,€ misuse of the€ VAERS€ database€ to€ attribute harms to the COVID-19 vaccine€ that are very likely coincidental, false claims that COVID-19€ vaccines€ cause€ infertility, and the appeal to “natural immunity” to the coronavirus and “natural herd immunity” as being inherently superior to vaccine-induced immunity or herd immunity from mass vaccination, which are denigrated as being somehow less than natural, artificial even—or even outright harmful. Never mind that achieving “natural herd immunity” requires that huge numbers of people be sickened and die of the disease, just as individual immunity from the disease requires the individual to be sickened and face the risk of severe disease and death.

      • 'Waive the Patents': Moderna Still Refuses to Share Covid-19 Vaccine Recipe

        With Moderna already under fire globally for prioritizing the vaccination demands of rich countries in the ongoing fight against Covid-19, the chairman and co-founder reiterated Monday that the American company will not share its vaccine recipe.

        In an interview with The Associated Press, Moderna's Noubar Afeyan claimed that appeals from the World Health Organization (WHO) and others to share the recipe assumed "that we couldn't get enough capacity, but in fact we know we can."

      • Facebook Harms Its Users Because That’s Where Its Profits Are

        Thinking about Facebook and what to do with it means grappling with two conflicting sets of facts. One is that Facebook is an immensely useful platform for communication, news publishing, economic activity, and more, which billions of people around the world rely on. The other is that Facebook is a highly addictive, profit-seeking entity that exploits and manipulates human psychology to make money, with dire results for the rest of society.

      • Michael Keaton confronts US opioid crisis in 'Dopesick'

        It explores how Purdue Pharma aggressively pushed OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription painkiller blamed for the country's opioid crisis that has caused half a million US overdose deaths since 1999.

        Purdue executives last year pleaded guilty to criminal charges that included defrauding federal health agencies by downplaying the addictive nature of the medication, and paying illegal kickbacks to doctors.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Fake ads rife on Bing as investment scams jump 84%

          Investment scams spiked by 84% in the first half of 2021 and total losses almost doubled from €£55.2m in the first half of 2020 to €£107.7m, largely driven by fraudulent advertising on search engines and social media, according to UK Finance.

        • Cyber insurance should not cover ransoms: Australian officials [iophk: Windows TCO]

          A paper written by Rachael Falk, chief executive of the organisation, and Anne-Louise Brown, its director of Corporate Affairs and Policy, listed this as one of its conclusions after a brief examination of how cyber insurance was working out in other parts of the world.

          Falk and Brown said assistance from an insurer should be limited to functions that covered response and recovery.

          They found it troubling that some cyber insurance policies in Australia explicitly offer coverage for extortion and ransom payments.

        • How A Chromebook Is Different To A Windows Laptop (And Which Is Best)

          Chromebooks have come a long way since they first hit the market ten years ago. Not only has the hardware gotten better, but the Chrome operating system has received significant upgrades taking the experience from one that's just an operating system built on top of a browser to one that's capable of doing so much more, including running Android and Linux apps. The popularity of Chromebooks has also increased over the years, with devices powered by Google's OS even outselling Macs last year.

        • Google’s Fuchsia OS to support more devices and other form factors

          Fuchsia OS is the newest operating system from Google that was launched earlier this year. This latest software from the technology giant is already powering the company’s first-generation Nest Hub.

          Now, a new job listing from the company, spotted by 9to5Google, sheds light on the matter that Google is looking to expand the Fuchsia operating system to “additional smart devices and other form factors.”

        • Pseudo-Open Source

        • Security

          • Security updates for Monday

            Security updates have been issued by Debian (apache2, mediawiki, neutron, and tiff), Fedora (chromium, dr_libs, firefox, and grafana), Mageia (apache), openSUSE (chromium and rabbitmq-server), Oracle (kernel), Red Hat (firefox and httpd24-httpd), SUSE (rabbitmq-server), and Ubuntu (libntlm).

          • Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Hacking the World – Part 2: What's Being Hacked (And What Changed with Covid)
            • What is a TPM and why isn’t mine working?

              If you’re like most people, you didn’t think about whether your computer had a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) until Microsoft made it part of its system requirements to run Windows 11. Now that Windows 11 has arrived, it’s a vital piece of whether or not you’ll even be able to upgrade. We’ll explain what a TPM is, how you can find out whether your system has one, and how to enable it if it’s turned off.

            • Facebook Changes the Way It Measures Accounts for Advertisers

              Facebook Inc. is changing the way it counts user profiles for advertising purposes -- a move that will increase the number of total accounts an advertiser can reach -- as part of an effort to improve privacy.

              The company currently uses data, like a user’s email address or phone ID, to link that person’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for advertising purposes. “We counted someone with multiple accounts as one person,” Facebook explained in a blog post Monday.

            • The terrifying expansion of Sweden’s state surveillance

              Next, the Swedish parliament passed a hugely problematic law that gave the police and security service the ability to hack into people’s phones to collect evidence or even in certain circumstances prevent “serious crimes”. It also gave the prosecutor discretion to approve these hacking warrants, which would only later be referred to a court for oversight. However, if the court finds that such a warrant was unlawful then the evidence, that was gathered under the prosecutor’s approval, cannot be used to make a case. Thus, the suspects’ privacy would be violated without a legitimate reason.

              Now, the Swedish government has proposed changes to the so called “FRA-law” (National Defense Radio Establishment or henceforth shortened to FRA), a law that gave the Swedish intelligence service the authority to conduct surveillance on any cable traffic passing Swedish borders. After years of litigation by the non-profit “Center for justice”, the European Court of Human Rights in a judgement earlier this year, declared several objections to the law as presently written.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Opinion | Imagine a World With US-China Cooperation

        On September 10, 2021, during an important diplomatic meeting that occurred by telephone, U.S. President Joseph Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping affirmed the necessity of a better relationship between their two nations.€  According to the official Chinese summary, Xi said that "when China and the United States cooperate, the two countries and the world will benefit; when China and the United States are in confrontation, the two countries and the world will suffer."€  He added:€  "Getting the relationship right is . . . something we must do and must do well."

      • Navy engineer accused of trying to pass intel in peanut butter sandwich

        On June 26, FBI agents watched Toebbe leave what was alleged to be an SD card that had been wrapped in plastic and placed in a peanut butter sandwich at a "dead drop" location in West Virginia, according to the complaint. During a separate drop, he used a Band-Aid wrapper and a plastic bag to hide an SD card, it says.

      • Trump’s Coup Attempt Is Far From Finished

        There was a vibrant conversation after Trump incited the deadly insurrection on January 6 about holding him to account based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War in order to address the treason of former Confederates. That section of the Constitution states that anyone who, “having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States…to support the Constitution of the United States, [and then] shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” is prohibited from holding office.

      • Jammu and Kashmir: Killing of civilians sparks militancy fear

        The spate of targeted killings has triggered widespread fear, especially among the minority communities of Kashmir, which has seen a decades-long armed insurgency against Delhi. Many Hindu families are now leaving the tense region, leading to comparisons with the situation in the 1990s.

      • Ex-Muslim Reveals What the Qur’an Says About Moderate Muslims

        Unfortunately, as we see from the Islamic texts themselves, it is the orthodox Muslims, such as the Taliban, who can quite justifiably call moderate Muslims hypocrites and treat them with disdain and worse. As the world has just witnessed in the late Summer of 2021, tens of thousands of moderate Muslims are desperately trying to escape Afghanistan as the entire country threatens to fall back into Sharia rule at the hands of the Taliban.

      • Only one of us drank alcohol, Kwara Madrasa students react to brutal flogging

        The Kwara State Government has, however, stepped into the matter.

    • Environment

      • Unite Human Rights and Environmental Policies, 130+ Groups Tell Global Leaders

        Securing "a just, equitable, and ecologically healthy world for all" necessitates including human rights in climate and environmental policies, over 130 global civil society groups declared in an open letter to world leaders released Monday.

        The letter was signed by Indigenous-led organizations from the Global South like the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (APIB) and groups from the Global North like Friends of the Earth International. Dozens of individual experts like former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment John H. Knox are also signatories.

      • Indigenous Coalition Tells Biden Communities Need Clean Water and Climate Action
      • 24 More Nations Join Global Methane Pledge Welcomed as 'Great Start' But Inadequate

        Experts on Monday cautiously welcomed announcements that another 24 nations have joined a U.S.- and European Union-led initiative to voluntarily slash methane emissions 30% from 2020 levels by the end of the decade, while climate campaigners underscored earlier assertions that much greater reductions are essential to combating the climate emergency.

        "Cutting methane pollution is the fastest opportunity we have to help avert our most acute climate risks, including crop loss, wildfires, extreme weather, and rising sea levels."

      • Ahead of UK-Hosted Climate Summit, Oil Critics Arrested for Blockade Outside Downing Street

        The Metropolitan Police arrested at least seven Greenpeace activists in London on Monday for disrupting traffic outside Downing Street by locking themselves to barrels and a 12-foot oil-splattered statue of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

        "Johnson must stop Cambo, and instead prioritize a just transition to renewable energy to protect consumers, workers, and the climate from future shocks."

      • Opinion | 'Code Red' for Climate Means Reducing US Oil and Gas Production Now

        This summer, the report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that keeping the increase in global temperature under 2 degrees Celsius would be "beyond reach" without "immediate, rapid and large-scale" reductions in global warming emissions. UN Secretary General António Guterres called it "code red for humanity."

      • Climate Science Denial Group Rebrands as ‘Net Zero Watch’

        The UK’s most prominent climate science denial group has launched a new anti-net zero campaign to oppose the government’s green policies, a move experts dubbed the “latest tactic” from the “same old climate change deniers”, warning the public not to be “fooled” by the rebrand.€ 

        The “Net Zero Watch” website was unveiled today with the stated aim of discussing the “serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies”.€ 

      • Indigenous People With Disabilities Are on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis
      • Biden Needs to Do More Than Sound the Alarm on Climate

        Like many world leaders, President Joe Biden is running out of metaphors to sound the alarm about our climate crisis—and we are running out of time. When he toured the damage on the East Coast from Tropical Storm Ida, he declared that we are at “code red.” Weeks later, appearing before the United Nations’ General Assembly, he warned that we are “fast approaching a point of no return.”

      • The Fight Against Extinction Requires Biocultural Restoration
      • A Quarter of All 'Critical' US Infrastructure at Risk From Flooding: Report

        Underscoring the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions and invest in public goods to better prepare communities across the United States for escalating extreme weather, a new report released Monday finds that one-quarter of the nation's "critical" infrastructure is already susceptible to flooding that renders it inaccessible, with risks projected to increase in the coming decades.

        Described as the first-ever nationwide evaluation of community-level vulnerability to flooding, the report—Infrastructure on the Brink, compiled by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit research group that specializes in environmental risk assessment—highlights localities where housing, commercial real estate, transportation networks, schools, hospitals, power plants, and other pieces of infrastructure face operational flood risk in 2021.

      • Energy

        • The Red Nation Slams Cooptation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day Amid Global Colonial Resource Extraction

          We continue our look at Indigenous Peoples’ Day with Jennifer Marley, a citizen of San Ildefonso Pueblo and a member of the grassroots Indigenous liberation organization The Red Nation, which helped lead a campaign in 2015 to officially recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Marley slams President Biden’s formal recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a federal holiday and discusses how Native lands are disproportionately used for resource extraction and how The Red Nation connects their local struggles to international decolonization campaigns, as well.

        • From Columbus to Enbridge: Colonial Exploitation Continues

          Maybe President Joe Biden will think about this one and stop the dirty oil from burning our rivers and air. The Indian wars could be over. After all, no one needs this pipeline, plus it’s the dirtiest and most expensive oil in the world to extract and produce.

          In one narrative, the Canadian corporation won. Columbus conquered anew, proof that might and money remain the rulers.

        • Seven in Ten Major UK Pension Funds Yet To Make ‘Robust’ Net Zero Commitment, Say Campaigners

          Nearly €£2 trillion is invested in UK pension schemes that are failing to tackle climate change, campaigners have claimed.

          A review of major pension funds by divestment campaign group Make My Money Matter found 71 of 100 are yet to detail concrete plans to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

        • 'Biden, Can You Hear Us Now?' Ask Indigenous Leaders Amid Arrests at Fossil Fuel Protest

          More than 130 Native American Earth protectors were arrested in Washington, D.C. Monday, while others were blasted with sonic weaponry as tribal leaders and members from across the continent they call Turtle Island gathered on Indigenous Peoples' Day to protest Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline and other oil and gas ventures backed by President Joe Biden, and to call on his administration to halt all fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.

          "People are dying right now from the pollutants, the toxins, the climate catastrophes that are happening, and we have to stop the harm."

        • 'The Burning of Fossil Fuels Is Killing Us,' WHO Warns in COP 26 Report

          Looking toward the United Nations summit scheduled for the end of the month, a top U.N. agency on Monday released a report that makes a "health argument for climate action" and calls on governments and policymakers to urgently tackle the emergency.

          "Protecting people's health from climate change requires transformational action in every sector."

        • “People vs. Fossil Fuels’’: Winona LaDuke & Mass Protests Call on Biden to Stop Line 3 Pipeline

          In response to the completion of the contested Line 3 pipeline, which is now reportedly operational, thousands of Indigenous leaders and climate justice advocates are kicking off the “People vs. Fossil Fuels’’ mobilization, an Indigenous-led five-day action of civil disobedience at the White House to demand President Biden declare a climate emergency, divest from fossil fuels and launch a “just renewable energy revolution.” “This pipeline doesn’t respect treaty rights,” says Winona LaDuke, longtime Indigenous activist and founder of Honor the Earth, a platform to raise awareness of and money for Indigenous struggles for environmental justice. “They’re just trying to continue their egregious behavior. It’s so tragic that, on the one hand, the Biden administration is like, ’We’re going to have Indigenous Peoples’ Day, but we’re still going to smash you in northern Minnesota and smash the rest of the country.’” LaDuke faces criminal charges linked to her protest of pipelines in three different counties.

        • Iran's Power Company Warns Of Cuts Due To Illegal Cryptocurrency Mining

          Illegal cryptocurrency mining will account for at least "10 percent of electricity outages this winter", the power company said in an October 10 statement published by the official government news agency IRNA.

          Such illegal mining was responsible for 20 percent of blackouts over the summer, the statement added.

          Iranian officials have repeatedly blamed unlicensed cryptocurrency miners for using vast amounts of electricity -- draining the power grid and raising air pollution levels in many cities.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • Opinion | Infrastructure Bill Would Help Protect Bees and Butterflies

          The insect world's version of the ultramarathon is now taking place across the United States. Monarch butterflies have started their journey to the groves where they'll spend the winter. Monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains have a long trip to the California coast before them, while eastern monarchs have a hefty 3,000-mile trek to the forests of Mexico.

        • Do dogs miss us when we are gone? A "talking" dog offers insights

          Recently the beloved sheepadoodle has been concerning herself with the absence of people and animals in her life. And to answer the question about animals missing us when they are gone: if they are anything like Bunny, it would seem that yes, they are very curious about where we go when we leave.

      • Overpopulation

    • Finance

      • The Care Movement Fights Back Against Cuts to Biden’s Historic Home Care Plan

        Rodriguez, who has cerebral palsy, explained that the profit motive, combined with a misconception that so-called “fragile” people like himself are incapable of living normal lives, has led to severe underfunding of home and community-based services for the elderly and disabled.

        “They’d rather have us locked up in nursing homes,” he said.

      • A Mixed Jobs Report

        The Establishment Survey is Not as Bad as it First Appears

        It is not clear that the weak story in the establishment survey should be seen as primarily a demand issue. First, private sector employment rose by a respectable 317,000, which follows a sharp upward revision to the August number to 332,000. The biggest surprise in this report is a drop of 123,000 in state and local government employment, putting the September level 874,000 below the pre-pandemic level. This drop, following weak growth in August, is hard to understand since most schools are open and state and local governments are mostly in decent fiscal shape.

      • Sportswashing at Tyneside: Saudi Arabia Moves into English Football

        In The Guardian, Barney Ronay was less enthusiastic, notably at the appearance of the House of Saud in English football.€  “Welcome, Mohammed bin Salman, to the billionaire boys club.€  No need to wipe your feet.€  Although maybe, on reflection, do wash your hands.€  Those damned spots, eh?”

        Hatice Cengiz, fiancée of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi so brutally carved up in his country’s Istanbul consulate in October 2018, spoke of her heartbreak.€  It was “a real shame for Newcastle and for English football” that the club was now in the hands of “the person responsible for the murder of Jamal.”

      • 'We Can Do All of It': Jayapal Urges Biden to Push for at Least $3 Trillion

        Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington is urging her fellow congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden to agree on at least $3 trillion in safety-net and climate spending in their emerging reconciliation package, a push that comes as right-wing lawmakers are attempting to water down the package and strip it of key progressive priorities.

        "We are fighting for something that will benefit the entire country."

      • Opinion | Build Back Better Legislation: New Keynesianism or Neoliberal Public Relations Stunt?

        For more than a week the country has been caught up in the ongoing melodrama of the “Build Back Better” (BBB) legislation, the Democrat Party’s “social investment” bill now languishing in the House because of the inability of the Democrats to come to an agreement. The fight is characterized by the corporate media as an intra-party struggle between the emerging “progressive/left” pole of the Party and the “center,” represented by the recalcitrant neoliberal corporate Democrats in the persons of Senators Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona.€ 

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • The Long Shadow of Anita Hill’s Testimony

        It’s been 30 years since professor Anita Hill raised her hand and swore to tell the truth to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary about the harassment she experienced while working at the nation’s leading agency against workplace discrimination. It was damning testimony on the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to serve on the US Supreme Court. His nomination by President George H.W. Bush to fill the vacancy left by Justice Thurgood Marshall’s retirement had alarmed some civil rights leaders even before Hill bravely came forward.

      • Never Forget
      • Hungarian-Style Soft Fascism is the GOP’s Ruthless New Brand

        The problem with the old fascism was that it was too brutal and militaristic: it offended voters’ democratic sensibilities, killed way too many people, and caused nearby nations to respond militarily to its perceived threat.

        This softer and gentler system, neofascism, still employs many of the same political and rhetorical tools old-fashioned fascists used to gain power, including white supremacy, ultranationalism, and a general embrace of neoliberal crony capitalism.

      • Opinion | Uncivil Politics

        The tension between progressives and “Centrists” has broken out, once again, in the open as the Left is pressuring and demanding that so-called “moderates” stop their obstruction of a much needed (and already compromised) 3.5 trillion “build back better” human infrastructure plan. While many in the media may dismiss this as typical Washington Beltway drama, it actually reflects deeper political anger at politicians from both Parties whose actual allegiance is to economic elites. This frustration has boiled over and taken almost surreal turns as recently immigration activists followed Senator Kyrsten Sinema into the bathroom to protest her blockage of the bill for reasons that appear to less with any serious ideological objection and more in pleasing the corporate donor base.

      • An Empty Building with a Tattered Flag: Palestinians Have No Voice in Washington

        In January of 2021 Reuters reported on “U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan to work to reopen the Palestinians’ diplomatic mission in Washington.” The office was closed down by then-President Donald Trump almost 25 years to the day after the signing of the Oslo Accords at the White House. The report mentions some of the legal and political hurdles that stand in the way of this plan, many of which were put in place during the Trump administration precisely for the purpose of preventing the mission’s reopening.

      • Awakening: Martin Luther King and the Poor People's Campaign

        The history of ethnic- or identity- based politics has long been a long one in the United States going back to the ethnocultural (ethnic, religious and racial identity) politics of the 19th century. Identity- based politics€ resurfaced€ in the 1960s with the Black Panther Party (BPP) (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense), a Black Power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in 1966. In the 1970s, identity politics were seen with the Black feminist socialist group, Combahee River Collective, and spread with the LGBT movements of the 1980s. Today ‘wokism’ is associated with identity-based groups such as Black Lives Matter (BLM).

      • How Trump Might Save the Democrats

        Trump’s speech in Iowa Saturday night suggests we’re already in the gravitational field of the 2024 midterms. But in making that speech mostly about himself, Trump may have given Democrats more leeway to do what Americans – including most Trump supporters – need them to do.

      • E-voting glitch which gave first 900 voters inaccurate information fixed

        E-voting in Estonian local government council elections began on Monday morning at 9 a.m., but with the online voting application displaying an erroneous message to voters which stated that only a test vote had been cast. This glitch has now been removed and the 900 votes cast properly registered, the State Electoral Office (VVK) says, while those using the system can in any case re-cast their e-vote during advance voting.

      • Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen to speak to its Oversight Board

        “I have accepted the invitation to brief the Facebook Oversight Board about what I learned while working there,” Haugen tweeted. “Facebook has lied to the board repeatedly, and I am looking forward to sharing the truth with them.”

    • Misinformation/Disinformation

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Some School Districts Are Banning Pride Flags as Political Speech
      • Iranian women on TV banned from eating pizza because it's too provocative

        Iranian authorities in recent weeks released broadcasting guidelines that ban women from eating pizzas and sandwiches on-screen under new rules set by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

        The latest wave of censorship rules banned TV producers in the Islamic Republic from showing women eating certain foods and wearing leather gloves on screen, as per new guidelines to broadcasters and filmmakers, following a recent audit.

      • Tanzania police arrest cartoonist, journalists on cybercrime and illegal assembly allegations

        Fwema was arrested days after publishing on his Instagram page a political cartoon that was critical of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, according to those sources.

      • In France “justice” serves Islamism

        In an investigation in the weekly Marianne we read that at the opening of the Great Mosque with Tatai they were all there, the mayor of Toulouse, the president of the Occitan region, the prefect and the president of the Islamic Council of Algeria, which financed the mosque with six million euros.

        Well, the Toulouse court has just cleared the imam of "incitement to hatred".

      • Australia mulls measures making social media giants responsible for defamatory postings

        The country's highest court ruled last month that publishers can be held liable for public comments on online forums, a judgement that has pitted Facebook and news organisations against each other.

        It also spread alarm among all sectors that engage with the public via social media and, in turn, has lent new urgency to an ongoing review of Australia's defamation laws.

      • [Old] Facebook or Twitter posts can now be quietly modified by the government under new surveillance laws

        A new law gives Australian police unprecedented powers for online surveillance, data interception and altering data. These powers, outlined in the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill, raise concerns over potential misuse, privacy and security.

        The bill updates the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. In essence, it allows law-enforcement agencies or authorities (such as the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission) to modify, add, copy or delete data when investigating serious online crimes.

      • Exiled journalist establishes publishing house to print books banned in Turkey

        Can Dündar, a Turkish journalist living in exile, has said a publishing house has been established in Germany to print books that have been censored or banned in Turkey at a time when the country faces growing criticism for limiting free speech and silencing dissent, Turkish Minute reported.

    • Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

      • Katrina vanden Heuvel on Nobel Peace Prize Winner Dmitry Muratov’s Fight for Press Freedom in Russia

        The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Russian independent journalist Dmitry Muratov and Filipina journalist Maria Ressa for “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.” Muratov runs the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which has lost more journalists to murder than any other Russian news outlet. Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor-in-chief of The Nation and reporter on Russia for the last 30 years, recounts the trajectory of Muratov’s career, noting his newspaper’s humble beginnings and his unexpected rise to becoming an advocate for freedom of the press. “Investigative journalism in Russia today is very dangerous,” says vanden Heuvel. Despite the danger, van Heuvel says that Novaya readership is skyrocketing with younger journalists lining up to work at the newspaper.

      • You’re Torturing Me

        These days of le théâtre de l’absurde in the round anything seems to go. If Jan 6 is any indicator, we’ve totally lost the plot.€  It would have been more interesting if they had succeeded — just to see what they were really up to, after the moping stopped, and Nancy was stripped of her insider trading portfolio conveniently lodged in her stolen podium. Imagine that Howl Head with the horns really in charge. Instead, we’re forced against our wills, held down by the MSM and made to believe, kicking and screaming against, that what happened on Jan 6 was serious enough to warrant adult attention.€  When, in fact, it was about as interesting as a Road Runner episode with styrofoam anvils — beep! beep! no real danger to Democracy. Sanity maybe.

        And speaking of adults and torture trauma, Mary Powers, through the Everlys, made me think of the 2014 Torture Report [here it is again, in case you didn’t around to it], of all things, like I got time for that kind of madness these days.€  A film, The Report, was put out, too. Essentially, they both said that the US Senate believes that EIT are forms of torture, and that it doesn’t work, and produced no useful intel to prevent further 9/11 attacks.€  Senator Feinstein even went so far as to aver, arms akimbo, “If it works, why do we need to do it 183 times?” Crickets.

      • Daniel Ellsberg On The CIA Plan To Kidnap And Possibly Kill Julian Assange, The End Of The Afghanistan Occupation, And The Ongoing Us Drone War

        Ellsberg’s subsequent trial on 12 felony counts posing a possible sentence of some 115 years was dismissed in 1973 on the grounds of governmental misconduct against him, leading to the convictions of several White House aides and figuring in the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon. Now in his 90’s, Dan Ellsberg is front and center in the battle to free Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. We spoke to Ellsberg on the heels of the troubling revelations that the US CIA was considering kidnapping and even killing Assange.

        Dennis: Good to speak to you again Dan. Let’s start with this: Why do you think the former CIA Director under Donald Trump thought that it might be necessary not only to kidnap, to maybe kill, Julian Assange? Why did they find him so dangerous?

      • Key witness in Assange case jailed in Iceland after admitting to lies and ongoing crime spree

        “Last week we learned of the CIA plan to kidnap or kill Assange in the centre of London and now the key witness of the US prosecution against him is in prison for serial offences - the same person that a few weeks ago confirmed in interviews that the elements in the indictment against Julian where he was the only witness, were total fabrications. The case against Assange should be dropped and under no circumstances, given recent revelations, can the UK extradite him.”

      • Does Canada consider WikiLeaks a terrorist group, Chelsea Manning's lawyer asks at immigration hearing

        Manning’s lawyers, Joshua Blum and Lex Gill, argued the charges she was convicted of in the United States are not equivalent to the criminal offences in Canada that the government used as the basis for banning Manning from the country.

        Canadian law declares it an offence to share damaging government secrets to a foreign entity or to a terrorist group, unlike U.S. laws that do not care who receives the information for a finding of guilt.

      • 2021 Nobel Peace Prize – “an extraordinary tribute to journalism,” says RSF

        “We extend our warmest congratulations to the two winners, who embody the fight for journalistic independence,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “This prize is an extraordinary tribute to journalism and a mobilisation appeal, because this decade will be absolutely decisive for journalism. It is a powerful message at a time when democracies are being undermined by the spread of fake news and hate speech.”

      • When Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa appeared at the Atlantic Council

        Citing Ressa’s work for the news site Rappler—which she co-founded in 2012 and leads as CEO—the committee praised her organization’s coverage of the “controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign” by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s government. Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, who founded investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was also awarded.

        Before Friday’s historic moment, Ressa appeared at the Atlantic Council on numerous occasions to share her thoughts about journalism in the age of disinformation and new-age dictatorship.

      • Indian TV reporter found dead after covering violence at farmers’ protest

        Raman Kashyap, who often worked for Sadhna Prime News TV, disappeared after the protest in Lakhimpur Kheri district turned violent and he was not located until his family found his body in a morgue the next day.

        The violence erupted when Ajay Kumar Mishra, a local politician who is minister of state in the federal ministry of home affairs, arrived with a convoy of cars, three of which drove into a crowd of protesters who were blocking their way, crushing several people. Kashyap was reportedly injured at this time in circumstances that are still unclear, and died shortly thereafter.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Opinion | US Must Stop Backing Regimes That Displace Indigenous Peoples From Their Homelands

        On this Indigenous Peoples' Day, I want to tell you about my people, the Garifuna. We're an Afro-Indigenous people, descended from Arawaks and Africans. Our ancestral territory spans the Caribbean border of Central America.

      • What Are We to Make of Columbus Today?

        I should admit at the outset that I am partially responsible for this new assessment of€  Columbus, since my book The Conquest of Paradise:€ Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy that came out in 1990 led a great many to take a second look at what the man was really like and what he really achieved.€  It effectively knocked most of the wheels off the Sesquicentennial € bandwagon that I was hoping to ride to bestsellerdom.

        My essential point was that Columbus was responsible for a great achievement: the opening up of “the New World” to European invasion and the subsequent enrichment and empowerment of one small impoverished continent, “the greatest event since the creation of the world,” as Spanish historian Lopez de Gomara called it in 1552. The discovery enabled Europe to become the dominant society not only in the Americas but around the world, to develop the elements both political and social that provide the basic structures of modern civilization, and in the process enabling a vast exchange of biotic and animal life-forms, purposely and accidentally, more thoroughly than any time since the Permian, allowing one single species to dominate nature around the world as never before.

      • Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: Indigenous Peoples’ Day Shared with Columbus Day Is a “Contradiction”

        President Biden has formally recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a federal holiday, following a growing movement to debunk the myth of Christopher Columbus as a beneficent discoverer and replace it with recognition that the arrival of Columbus in the Bahamas unleashed a brutal genocide that massacred tens of millions of Native people across the hemisphere. But the holiday will continue to be shared with Columbus Day, which many argue glorifies the nation’s dark history of colonial genocide that killed millions of Native people. “It’s just not appropriate to celebrate Columbus and Indigenous peoples on the same day. It’s a contradiction,” says author and historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. “Genocidal enslavement is what Columbus represents.”

      • “They Are Throwing New Yorkers Into Cages on Rikers Island in Our Name!”

        On the night of Friday, Oct 1, New York State Assemblymember Emily Gallagher took a seat in the second wooden pew in the audience section of a quiet courtroom. She was there, along with fellow legislator State Senator Jabari Brisport, to observe “night court,” or the arraignments of people charged with crimes in Brooklyn Criminal Court. As people began to come before the judge in handcuffs, the legislators could hear screaming and crying coming from a room out of sight, to the right of where the judge sat. These were the screams of a man who was waiting to be arraigned—“a fitting soundtrack to our night,” Assemblymember Gallagher told me grimly.

      • Someone Else’s Discomfort: On Gregg Bordowitz

        When I was growing up, I rarely thought about masculinity, which is one of the main privileges it affords. Back then, in the 1980s and ’90s, so long as you weren’t bad in some crass, pawing, physically aggressive way, you could consider yourself good. But the gradient of masculine identities seemed so basic and finite—from jock to nerd—that, to me, the only real option was to reject all of them, to embrace the absence of viable models. As a young Asian American, I thought of this as a natural response, given how many provinces of masculinity seemed to be permanently off limits. I could never imagine myself as a leading man or star athlete, and I remember feeling liberated when I accepted that as the case: My alternative to being brutish and gross was none of the above.

      • A Secretive Counterterrorism Team Interrogated Dozens of Citizens at the Border, Government Report Finds

        A new government report has revealed that a secretive counterterrorism team interrogated dozens of American activists and journalists at the border as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping response to fears about a large migrant “caravan” that was making its way to the United States’ southern border.

      • Mandatory Reporting Can Trigger Investigation Without Survivors’ Consent
      • The US Has Used Conservatorships to Exploit Indigenous Peoples
      • Microcosms of Mayhem & Humanity: Destroying Black & Brown Lives for High-Rises in the Nation's Capital

        “Where that McDonald’s is right now,” he says pointing across the street. “That used to be a news stand where I’d buy comics as a kid.” Dumah Muhammad stands in Adams Morgan Plaza in Washington, D.C., a light drizzle misting a small crowd of supporters and press. A few people wrangle a tarp over the PA system and there’s a tent where folks can grab snacks, pamphlets, water and shelter. Five Metropolitan Police cars are parked alongside the plaza and just behind the plaza there’s a staging area stacked with fencing and mingling cops.

      • Indigenous Coalition to Biden: Communities Need Clean Water and Climate Action, Not 'Empty Words'

        On the heels of President Joe Biden's proclamation formally marking Indigenous Peoples' Day, a coalition of Indigenous and environmental leaders on Sunday delivered a blunt message to the White House: "We don't need performative proclamations, our communities are dying."

        "No proclamations needed until there is justice for the original stewards of these lands."

      • Sharia, apostasy and the Taliban

        Christians who remain in Afghanistan are at risk of being hunted down and killed by the Taliban now that the Islamist group has regained control of the country and, on 7 September, announced the formation of a new government.

        The Christians of Afghanistan are first-generation converts who, along with their children, will be considered apostates (murtadd) from Islam. They are therefore, according to sharia (Islamic law), liable to the death penalty.

      • Deb Haaland, Interior Secretary, on Indian Schools, MMIW, and Climate Change

        When I sat down to talk to Haaland on Zoom I wanted to know what this historic role meant to her — and how she planned to use it. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

    • Monopolies

      • Microsoft Says Pact Lets Ex-Amazon Executive Begin New Role

        Former Amazon.com Inc. cloud computing executive Charlie Bell began his new role Monday working on cybersecurity issues at Microsoft Corp. after the rival companies resolved a dispute regarding the limits of his job, Microsoft said.

      • Patents

        • 'Reckless': Doctors Without Borders Slams US for Hoarding 500 Million Vaccine Doses

          The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders unveiled a new report Monday estimating that the United States is hoarding nearly 500 million excess coronavirus vaccine doses—the most of any country—as poor nations across the globe remain without sufficient access to lifesaving shots.

          "The rapid redistribution of these doses to low- and middle-income countries could save nearly one million lives by mid-2022."

      • Copyrights

        • VPN Service 'Agrees' to Block BitTorrent and Keep Logs to Settle Piracy Lawsuit (Updated)

          VPN.ht has settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by a group of independent movie companies earlier this year. As part of the deal, the VPN agreed to block all BitTorrent traffic and log IP-address information on its US servers. While this a controversial order, VPN.ht says that users are still protected as the company will stop using US servers.

        • Don't Believe Nitro IPTV 'Lies', We Need Access to Their Millions, Hollywood Says

          Members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment have filed a scathing response following Nitro TV's attempt to have the lawsuit against it dismissed. Using words including "lies" and "laughable", the ACE members are doubling down, demanding information that will help them gain access to millions of dollars in revenue generated by the pirate IPTV service.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day